What are we to make of the UK's new proposals intended to protect people from Animal Rights harassment? Well, here's an interview with Mr. Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, the solicitor who represents a number of companies, including Huntingdon Life Science, that use animal testing in their research.
The long and the short of this is that neither Mr. Lawson-Cruttenden (he himself was/is a target of AR extremists) nor the more prominent extremists (Greg Avery of SHAC nor Mel Broughton, a spokesman for Speak, which was set up to oppose a new laboratory at Oxford University) think the governmental measures will do much to curb the extremists' activities.
Keep in mind that the tactics that are the most difficult to deal with are perfectly legal, though they do depend on illegal activities of anonymous useful idiots. For the sake of making this post self-contained, it's worth reviewing the AR strategy and tactics.
The most effective strategy has been to attack their primary target indirectly. They do this by attacking clients and suppliers of their primary target, both of which are necessary if the primary target is to survive. The logic is sound: the secondary targets are softer than the primary - it's relatively easy to get a company to give up 5% of it's business, but very difficult to force a company to shut down. If you can force each of enough suppliers and clients into severing relations with the primary target (i.e. - "Give up 5% of your business or else ..."), the primary target will starve.
There is nothing illegal about thinking this way.
Tactically, you post on websites and disseminate by way of flyers and any media source you can manipulate the nature of your grievance with the secondary targets (they do business with the Great Satan), using incendiary rhetoric. That's perfectly legal.
And, you disseminate, by the same methods, personal information about employees of your secondary targets - names (of employees, their spouses, children, relatives, friends, neighbors, etc.), addresses, car identifiers, credit information, etc. All of this is perfectly legal too - most of this information is already public.
You can also post ways of attacking these individuals, which you do not condone: paint remover on cars, broken windows, false letters to shareholders,
If you play your cards right, you'll recruit some anonymous hot-headed useful idiot to your cause who will take the ball and run with it: s/he will decide to step across the line into territory that you "don't advocate" and use just those weapons that you've suggested. However illegal your anonymous agent's activity might be, nobody can hold you accountable for what the useful idiot did.
I've likened this process to the chemicals used to make explosives:
By analogy, the issue of what is posted (for example) on a web site, and how that information can be used is a lot like an explosive compound: all of its elements can be innocuous by themselves - it's only when they're mixed together that they become dangerous and subject to restrictions. To continue the analogy, the extremists are just giving away the chemicals that someone could combine into an explosive, if he so wished. The extremists aren't creating the explosive themselves. They do not specifically advocate its use, nor do they know (or care!) who might.
So - that's the problem in a nutshell.
What to do about it? Well, the government has set up an "elite police force" to deal with the extremists.
A new £5 million counterterrorism unit is being set up to protect the Midlands from possible attack by extremist groups.
The group, which will involve officers from forces across the region, could become the pilot for similar counter-terrorism squads across Britain.
Paul Scott-Lee, Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, will lead the Home Office-funded project on behalf of the terrorism committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers.
Sussex Chief Constable Ken Jones, the ACPO lead on terrorism issues, said preparations for the unit were under way, with premises found and a commander appointed. . . .
The unit will complement regional special branches and new intelligence cells set up in the area, and work with the counter-terrorism branch of the Metropolitan Police which traditionally takes the lead in this area. It will also work alongside the security services when it becomes active next year.
An ACPO statement said: "As with the anti-terrorist branch and all other types of pro-active police investigation, the unit will not target any particular community. It will target suspected terrorist activity whatever its nature and source on an intelligence-led basis.
"Its operations will be assessed and it is envisaged that it will form the template for similar units in the other regions in the future."
Mr Jones said he wanted to eliminate the threat of single issue extremist groups during his three-year stint as head of counter terrorism at ACPO. "These dangerous and sinister people have chosen illegal direct action over lawful protest. We are cracking down on them and those who facilitate them." . . .
This is all well and good, and is a necessary step. But it is insufficient by itself.
I may be wrong, but I think this war will be won or lost in the press. If the press excuse strong arm tactics, intimidation, coercion, vandalism, reputation destruction etc. on the grounds of "good motives," it's going to be hard to win public condemnation against the AR thugs.
But if the press de-emphasizes lofty motives, and emphasizes the thuggish tactics of the extremists, public support will swing against them. The ebb and flow of battle will go even more against the extremists if the press do a half-way decent job in exposing the contradictions of the AR philosophy as a whole, and scientists, or their spokespeople, take the AR "arguments" and turn them on their head (as I tried to do here).
So far, the press has been pretty good - they've talked aplenty about people who've been victimized by the thugs, and about the extraordinary power a tiny group of extremists has been able to wield. In short, the press has given the victims faces and made the chilling point that up to now, the tactics of terror have been successful (see links here).
If the press continues in this vein, and if the "elite police force" has the will and the intelligence resources to do its job, the AR thugs are in for trouble.
Thanks to Dave S. for the tip.
Brian